Oregon Governor. He served from 1939 to 1943 as the 22nd governor of the State of Oregon. As a Republican, he carried 32 of the 36 counties in the general election. Of course, as an educator, he modernized the state's school system. He launched vocational-training programs to help the untrained jobless, balanced the state's budget, and provided social welfare services. After traveling around the Midwest working at various jobs, he enrolled at Monmouth College in Illinois. Having much difficulties monetarily, he became a part-time newspaper reporter and a school teacher, but finally graduating in 1901 with honors. He relocated to Washington State becoming involved with the public school system as superintendent of schools in Waitsburg and eventually advancing to assistant superintendent of public instruction for the state. He married an educator and the couple had two children. In 1915 he became editor and publisher of the weekly "Journal-Times" in Ritzville, Washington. In 1925 in a career change, he relocated to Oregon, becoming a partner in a newspaper. In 1929 he became the editor, publisher, manager, and eventually sole owner of the state's second-oldest daily newspaper, the "Oregon Statesman" in Salem, remaining at this position for the next 40 years. While he was governor, he lost the political backing of organized labor, since he awarded state contracts to the lowest bidder, whether or not they were union firms. His main concern was the state's budget. Being one of the first in the nation, he introduced state regulation of logging operations to protect and rehabilitate state forest lands. With the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, he encouraged the people of Oregon not to harass Japanese-Americans living in the state until United States President Roosevelts order force internment of Japanese-Americans. At that point, he had no public comment. After not being reelected as governor, he returned to the newspaper business. In 1943 he began his page-one column, "It Seems To Me," which ran daily for twenty-five years . In December of 1944, he supported the Japanese-American in restoration of their pre-war property and for this, he was decorated by the Japanese government. In 1944 he was a Republican candidate for the United States Senate but fail in the primary elections and ending his political ambitions. In his later years, his Republican stance had turned more Democrat. In 1952 he was appointed by President Harry S. Truman as an alternate delegate to the United Nations. He led Oregon newspapers' opposition to McCarthyism in the 1950s, and in 1962 he was the first recipient of the E.B. MacNaughton Award of the Oregon chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. He served as trustee of both Albany College and Willamette University. In 1955 he received the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award as well as an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Colby College in Maine. In 1977 a high school was named in his honor.